Military chief read riot act

The commander of Phnom Penh’s Municipal Military Police has been demoted due to his alleged mismanagement of what amounted to an Election Day riot in front of the Stung Meanchey pagoda polling station.

Brigadier General Ya Kim Y, who led the capital’s military police department and holds a deputy commander position at the national level, was removed from his position on Monday, according to a senior military police official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Kim Y will be replaced by Lieutenant General Vong Pisen, the department’s chief of staff in Phnom Penh and a deputy chief in the National Military Police, the official said.

“He made a serious mistake, because he could not prevent a riot that happened in front of an election poll in Stung Meanchey commune on Sunday,” the official told the Post yesterday. “Two military police vehicles were destroyed by protesters.”

Unrest caused by accusations of voter fraud at the polling station culminated in the surrounding and trapping of a polling station director inside a pagoda and the burning of two military police vehicles on Sunday, as tensions boiled over.

Police closed the Stung Meanchey Bridge to traffic as rioters threw volleys of rocks before destroying the vehicles.

Brigadier General Kheng Tito, a spokesman for the National Military Police, yesterday said he had no knowledge of Kim Y’s removal, but that military police are actively seeking the arrests of 10 people, including a Buddhist monk, who were allegedly caught on video participating in the riot.

“We expect that our police will arrest them soon,” Tito said.

Buddhist monks living at the Stung Meanchey pagoda gathered yesterday for a meeting called by the pagoda chief – which was attended by Khem Sorn, the chief monk of Phnom Penh municipality – to strengthen the Buddhist monks’ discipline and regulation in pagoda. The meeting was cancelled by monks who said onlookers and journalists crowded the pagoda.

MOST VIEWED

Hundreds of protesters gathered in Sydney’s Hyde Park on Friday to protest against Cambodian strongman Hun Sen, who claimed to have been gifted millions of dollars by the Australian government ahead of a special Asean summit this weekend.
An estimated 300 protesters, the majority of

An American citizen was arrested on request by the US Embassy in Phnom Penh on Tuesday, according to Cambodian police.
Major General Uk Hei Sela, chief of investigations at the Department of Immigration, identified the man as American Jan Sterling Hagen, and said he was

Updated: 5:20pm, Friday 16 March 2018
An Australian tourist and a Cambodian soldier were killed in an explosion on Thursday afternoon at an army base in Cambodia’s Kampong Speu province.
The Australian, whom the government initially identified as a technical demining expert in his 40s, and

When the man passed away, he had not yet reached 50.
He belonged to a tribe that had settled near the Sangker River in Battambang province, likely cultivating the fields and raising animals. On the side, they hunted for boars, and even turtles, one of which